The great novelty, in tax terms, of the General State Budget project for 2022 is the creation of a minimum rate of 15% in corporate tax that will limit the possibility that companies have to reduce their taxation by applying tax advantages. However, given the economic recovery and the reactivation of certain investments subject to incentives, the Government estimates that, despite the new limitation, Spanish companies will increase the use of tax benefits linked to companies by 52% year-on-year, reducing by 5,674 million euros. euros the potential revenue of the State.
For the year 2021, the Treasury had initially budgeted the consumption of 3,872 million in corporate tax benefits, although the slowdown in the economic recovery has led it to moderate its calculation to 3,740 million in the preparation of the Budget for 2022, exercise for the which foresees an increase of 1,934 million.
These tax benefits are the set of deductions, reductions, exemptions or special rates that are offered to companies to encourage certain practices and that allow them to reduce the real payment of the tax compared to the nominal starting rate of 25% (30% for banking and oil companies). In 2022, for the first time, this reduction will not be able to erode the threshold of 15% of the tax base (which is the profit after making other accounting adjustments for tax credits, mergers and other assumptions), or 18% in the case of banking and oil companies.
In any case, the limit will apply only to consolidated groups, or firms that bill more than 20 million, and most already pay more than 15%, so the Treasury assumes that it will barely collect 400 million from the 1,070 largest companies.
Furthermore, the reason why the amount of tax benefits applied will grow despite this new limit is fundamentally “the simultaneous effect of a more favorable economic cycle than that observed” in 2021, justifies the Treasury, which will further boost activity and lead to a “broadening the set of incentives” available. From there, the Government points in the Budgets to a series of key factors.
The first of them is based on the forecast that variable capital investment companies (sicavs) will shoot their profit, raising, consequently, by 251.6%, to 568 million, the tax benefit derived from their power to pay a reduced rate of only 1%.
The same occurs with listed real estate investment companies, the Socimis, although in their case the new special tax of 15% applied as of 2021 “attenuates the inertial growth of the tax benefits associated with these entities,” admits the Treasury, which moderates the increase for 2022 to 40.8%, at 235 million.
Furthermore, the economic improvement forecast for 2022 would encourage general activity and the use of specific benefits such as deductions for investments in the Canary Islands (which would grow by 91.1%, to 369 million); the deduction for donations, which will increase by 49.3%, to 257 million), or the reduction for capitalization reserves, which increases by 46.7%, to 625 million
In parallel, the deductions associated with R & D & i would advance by 39.2%, to 891 million, and the pending investment incentives from previous years grew by 37.4%, to 754 million.
In total there are 22 large groups of corporate tax benefits, although those mentioned so far, plus the 367 million exemption for non-profit entities, account for 75.4% of the entire package. Further, the projection for cinematographic, scenic and audiovisual productions also stands out, which, thanks to the improvements approved in 2021, will increase the use of their tax benefits by 54.1%, to 153 million.
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